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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (92071)	12/28/2004 1:30:29 AM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

I have stumbled across your post on my way to bed, not a great time to answer it because it will undoubtedly require much research on my part. It looks like you have a stronger search engine than I do, or more references at hand, Charles. But when I do pull a reply together I will dash it off to you.

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (92071)	12/29/2004 2:22:21 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Charles, I think we are discussing apples and oranges re the role of Catholic priests in the Irish Potato Famine. I am sticking with my assertion that none of them died in the Famine, based on the fact that it came from a reliable media source and was part of a presentation to Ireland's president. At the same time, I do not disagree with your source material which discusses the rise of Catholicism after the Famine. One thing I like to talk about regarding the history of Ireland, and particularly the religous part of that, is how the the society changed and deteriorated under Catholicism, and how civilized Ireland was during the Celtic times. This is going to take several posts, and I don't have a lot of time right now, but I would like to start by sharing some material on Celtic marriage ceremonies. This comes from a sermon by a Unitarian minister who has wide knowledge of the subject, but I verified it independently as well. This is from a marriage of equals (there were six degrees of marriage in Celtic society), and begins with part of the minister's sermon: "The Celtic spiritual belief system and culture were also highly developed; their awareness of man's dependence upon the natural world was far greater than many in our own time; and their legal system was quite extraordinary -- including the laws that governed marriage! Those particular laws have made me wonder whether all the marriages in America which end in divorce today might have a better chance of surviving if their union started off with the vows that were required of both parties thousands of years ago at a Celtic "Marriage of the First Degree." In a contract marriage between a man and woman of equal influence and wealth, the prospective bride and groom would stand before the assembled people and say to each other: "You cannot possess me for I belong to myself. But as we both wish it, I give you that which is mine to give. You cannot command me for I am a free person. But I shall serve you in those ways you require and the honeycomb will taste sweeter coming from my hand. I pledge to you that yours will be the name I cry aloud in the night, and the eyes into which I smile in the morning. I pledge to you the first bite from my meat and the first drink from my cup. I pledge to you my living and my dying, each equally in your care. I shall be a shield for your back, and you for mine. I shall not slander you, nor you me. I shall honour you above all others, and when we quarrel, we shall do so in private and tell no strangers our grievances. This is my wedding vow to you. And the Druid priest presiding over the ceremony would warn: "This is the marriage of equals.... These promises you make by the sun and moon, by fire and water, by day and night, by land and sea. With these vows you swear by the gods your people swear by, to be full partners, each to the other. "If one drops the load, the other will pick it up. If one is a discredit to the other, his own honour will be forfeit, generation upon generation, until he repairs that which was damaged or replaces that which was lost. The vow of first degree supersedes all others. Should you fail to keep the oath you pledge today, the elements themselves will reach out and destroy you." uucss.org

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (92071)	12/30/2004 1:34:34 AM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Sorry--I didn't quite respond to your entire post, Charles. No, we wouldn't be Paisleyites. What a disgusting man that it! And still alive! I despised him in the early 1980's, and am very disappointed to see him still walking upright too many years later. Now Bernadette Devlin did sleep in my house in San Francisco. Before I moved in, but she slept right in little Grainnette's room. Her uncle used to own the house. I must say Grainnette looked very cute in her tiny Irish dance dress in those years. And Sinn Fein did a lot for women's rights in the North, a seldom discussed part of their political philosophy. Have you ever read any of Gerry Adams' books? Freeing the Irish from English rule was only part of their ideology. He and the Provo leaders were at university in the 1960's just like the Americans of the same generation who led the anti-Vietnam and free speech and civil rights movements in the '60's. The plight of women in Eire is a complicated subject and I will write a post about it eventually, but one thing that is pretty much not discussed is the struggle for women's rights in Northern Ireland. I had forgotten until I looked around on the web how much progress has been made in the last twenty years. This is from the 1980's, and it seems very dated, doesn't it? etext.org